Tapulous, the developer of some of the most popular free applications in the iTunes App Store has lost a prominent engineer and co-founder, Mike Lee. Mike Lee, self designated toughest programmer in the world, was asked to resign from the company over voicing concerns the engineers had on the direction of the company.

This is a rather shocking turn and points to obvious strife in the company. Something that can destroy a young company like Tapulous. Especially so in such a rapidly growing industry like iPhone development where talented people are at such high demand. With the current boom in iPhone app development, the engineers at Tapulous can all pretty much name their price at dozens of companies.

Consider this a turning point for one of the brightest stars in iPhone app development. From this point they either get stronger or implode.

Tapulous is a development company behind Tap Tap Revenge (iTunes) and Twinkle (iTunes).